The blue boat

How late the daylight edges

toward the northern night

as though journeying

in a blue boat, gilded in mussel shell

with, slung from its mast, a lantern

like our old idea of the soul

All that is glorious around us

is not, for me, these grand vistas, sublime peaks, mist-filled
overlooks, towering clouds, but doing errands on a day
of driving rain, staying dry inside the silver skin of the car,
160,000 miles, still running just fine. Or later,
sitting in a café warmed by the steam
from white chicken chilli, two cups of dark coffee,
watching the red and gold leaves race down the street,
confetti from autumn’s bright parade. And I think
of how my mother struggles to breathe, how few good days
she has now, how we never think about the glories
of breath, oxygen cascading down our throats to the lungs,
simple as the journey of water over a rock. It is the nature
of stone / to be satisfied / writes Mary Oliver, It is the nature
of water / to want to be somewhere else, rushing down
a rocky tor or high escarpment, the panoramic landscape
boundless behind it. But everything glorious is around
us already: black and blue graffiti shining in the rain’s
bright glaze, the small rainbows of oil on the pavement,
where the last car to park has left its mark on the glistening
street, this radiant world.

White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field

Coming down out of the freezing sky

with its depths of light,

like an angel, or a Buddha with wings,

it was beautiful, and accurate,

striking the snow and whatever was there

with a force that left the imprint

of the tips of its wings — five feet apart —

and the grabbing thrust of its feet,

and the indentation of what had been running

through the white valleys of the snow —

and then it rose, gracefully,

and flew back to the frozen marshes

to lurk there, like a little lighthouse,

in the blue shadows —

so I thought:

maybe death isn't darkness, after all,

but so much light wrapping itself around us

as soft as feathers —

that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,

and shut our eyes, not without amazement,

and let ourselves be carried,

as through the translucence of mica,

to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,

that is nothing but light — scalding, aortal light —

in which we are washed and washed

out of our bones.

Love Pirates

I follow with my mouth the small wing of muscle

under your shoulder, lean over your back, breathing

into your hair and thinking of nothing. I want

to lie down with you under the sails of a wooden sloop

and drift away from all of it, our two cars rusting

in the parking lot, our families whining like tame geese

at feeding time, and all the bosses of the earth

cursing the traffic in the morning haze.

They will telephone each other from their sofas

and glass desks, with no idea where we could be,

unable to picture the dark throat

of the saxophone playing upriver, or the fire

we gather between us on this fantail of dusty light,

having stolen a truckload of roses

and thrown them into the sea.